


What's In a Name?

by Jedi Buttercup (jedibuttercup)



Category: Hitman: Agent 47 (2015)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Friendship, Gen, Post-Movie(s), Wordcount: 1.000-5.000, Yuletide 2016
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-19
Updated: 2016-12-19
Packaged: 2018-09-09 17:36:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8904691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jedibuttercup/pseuds/Jedi%20Buttercup
Summary: The world hasn't changed.  Only the way Katia perceives it.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TLvop](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TLvop/gifts).



> Written as a treat in Yuletide 2016, because dumb action movies with cool visuals and interesting/smart characterizations are a favorite thing of mine, too. Set immediately post-movie. (No videogame canon; I haven't played them either.)

The lighting in the elevator is just as relentlessly white on the way back down as it was to the roof, casting the same revealing light on everything within it. The sacrifice of Katia's father; the death of LeClerq; the stiff carriage of 47's shoulder where he'd lunged in front of a bullet to protect her; the fresh wound down the outside of her left arm from blocking 48 from killing _him_ ; none of these things have changed the atmosphere of that small, transitional space. Only the way she perceives it.

She checks the .45 in her hand; it's empty, the barrel slightly stained from the use she'd put it to when the magazine had run dry. She quirks a small, mirthless smile at it, then turns it in her hand and offers the grip to 47.

"Fifteen," she says.

He gives her a polite, calmly curious look as he accepts the weapon back, then shakes his head gently. "Sixteen," he replies.

A slight furrow wrinkles her brow, and she eyes him skeptically. He's not unhandsome, the lines of his face strong and his eyebrows a dark contrast against his shaved skull, even marked now with scratches and shadows from their adventure. She's learned the hard way not to believe friendly expressions on the faces of attractive men, and their accord still feels new and fragile, but so far 47 has always meant what he said. "I thought you said fourteen Agents had died attempting to get to LeClerq. Was there another I missed after you knocked me unconscious? Or are you counting John Smith?"

47's expression shifts to something she'd probably call condescending on anyone else; on him, it's as close as he comes to 'amused'. "If there's a contract out on me, I've been effectively removed from the ICA as well, alive or otherwise," he reminds her.

Katia snorts at that, then lifts the corner of her right sleeve to rub at the tacky, drying smears on her cheek. "Ah. So you _were_ supposed to kill me, too. You said something about that back in the beginning; that you chose not to." Before, of course, endangering her life in wild and unusual ways and simply expecting her to keep up, like no one ever had before. She really shouldn't have followed him before she had proof of John Smith's betrayal, but something about him had just _pulled_ at her, like to like.

He inclines his head; a very calm man, this pseudo-brother of hers. No blood relation, she didn't think, for all her father had used the term and 47 seemed to have accepted it; siblings of nurture via their programming, not essential nature. But still tied, in whatever way they chose to accept.

"What made you so different, then? You told me not to rely on you, but you chose not to kill me. You chose to bring me along and give me the tools to take my own revenge. And you chose to take a bullet for me and defend me from another Agent. If they're all basically just like you ... why did _you_ make that choice, and not forty-eight?" Katia thinks she knows the answer, but she wants to hear him say it.

47's expression goes vaguely distant as the elevator slows at the bottom floor; Katia takes the moment to pause and listen as well, mapping the slight shifts of sound throughout the sprawling space outside to pick out every fallen, groaning attacker and every sprawled corpse that won't be blocking their exit. 48 had been thorough, cleaning up what she and 47 had left behind on their way up, and though she can also hear the faint wail of sirens, they're not close enough to be an immediate concern.

47 focuses on her again, the faint quirk at the corner of his mouth tucking in another degree or two. So the answer to that question was obvious, too, was it?

"You," he says, both confirming and confusing her all at once.

" _Me_?" she repeats, taken aback. What had she managed to do in the brief time he was chasing her to somehow differentiate him from the others?

"They went to great lengths to keep the Agents' upbringing as identical as possible," he says, offering her a minimal shrug. "The only difference, for me, was you — and your father. He needed someone to compare your training to, someone he could keep quiet. There was a reason I was the only one near enough to witness your escape. I've spent a long time thinking about that, about why he gave you the same skills but such a different experiential foundation."

A realization flashes through Katia as the doors open; as she visualizes herself and 47 leaving the building, where the danger points are likely to be. Which guards are still mobile enough to fight back, where the cameras are outside. He's injured worse than she is; it's going to be tricky, but still doable, if she has a little patience.

Much, in fact, like his own existence must have been for many of the years since they'd first met.

"You were thinking about _should_ ," she murmurs as she accepts the reloaded .45 back from his casually offering hand and takes care of the first threat to make himself visible. "When you said you wanted LeClerq gone to put an end to the Agent program ... you weren't talking about simply preventing Syndicate from creating _new_ Agents."

He adjusts his jacket and cuffs to hide the most obvious signs of blood and follows in her wake, tracking the same things in different directions, covering for her and accepting her reciprocal efforts without a word. Something she doesn't think _he's_ realized, in all his attempts to reactivate her training — by his own account, she was always tested _with_ him. 47 may be used to doing his job alone, but the only time she ever did this as a child, she had a partner; she hasn't been terrified because the world is full of dangers and the tools her father gave her make her react to every one, she's been afraid because the one who was supposed to be there to cover her blind spots _wasn't_. It was a tremendous relief to her to fight _with_ him, rather than by herself; something she's going to have to unpack more later. This isn't the time.

"Most of the ones who had other ... aberrant experiences ... are long gone," he agrees. "None of the ones who are left will hesitate."

"Because I was always a threat to them. And you've made yourself one. But — why?" She pauses as he deals with a surviving guard firing wildly at them from above, sending another body crashing down the exposed staircase. "Why wouldn't they have brought me in, used me themselves, if they knew what I could do?"

He presses his lips together, going quiet, and for a moment she wonders if he's injured worse than she'd thought, or if she's pushed too far. But then they're out the lobby door, skirting the building as they head for a more populated street, and he finally answers, lowering his voice as he walks more closely at her side to conceal his weapon between them.

"For the same reason they sent forty-eight at the first sign of disobedience," he says. "As I knew they would. It isn't the value of the decision I made...."

Katia catches her breath harshly. How could people like that exist, who thought of other human beings as mere tools? She knows that her father must have once thought the same, for the Agent program to have ever got off the ground to begin with; but he also _left_ , and tried with everything in him to keep her free. "It's that you made one at all. Like the story of the dog who sang opera."

47 throws her another sidelong look, all arched eyebrows and a spark of something that looks a great deal like subdued humor. One of these days, she vows to herself, she's going to make him laugh; she needs a new goal in life besides surviving, and she thinks that one will do to start with.

"By the way," she suddenly wonders, "what am I going to call you in public? 'Forty-seven' will draw too much attention. Didn't anyone ever call you anything else?"

"Like _quatre-vingt-dix_ became Katia Van Dees?" He pauses at a corner, expression going distant as he listens ahead again; she glances back the way they've come, letting the lights and noise rise to blur together as her instincts search for threatening patterns in the mix. There are a few assholes about, armed men, reckless drivers, but no new threats pouring out of the Syndicate building as yet; only a helicopter a short distance out, headed for the roof. But she's sure that won't last long.

He takes something out of a pocket, drops it on the sidewalk where an unwary runner might trip over it, then takes her free hand and steps out into the street. Any blood-speckled footprints they might have been leaving are quickly obliterated as they cross diagonally to an alleyway hard to spot at a distance. It'll be a roundabout way to wherever they're going, but then, she's never really travelled any other way.

"Yes," she replies. "Or — whatever's on your passport. You have to have _some_ identity to travel under. It can't be _quarante-sept_."

"No; but it won't be helpful to use any of the ICA's names. They've all been flagged by now," 47 shrugs. _And they aren't me_ , he doesn't add, but she gets anyway.

"Then — Seth." From the end of his number in French, the same way she was named for her number. "Or — Mercury, perhaps?" she adds on a whimsical note.

"Mercury?" That surprises him, she can tell. There isn't much variation in the tone of his voice, but she can still hear it; one of the benefits of her superior perceptions, now that she isn't dulling them with drugs.

"Forty-seven; Ford...." she lays out the first two steps in her line of thought as she notices a convenience store up ahead. Several voices echo from inside, none tense or raised; good, they'll need to acquire supplies to patch themselves up from somewhere. Luckily _all_ her cash wasn't in the bag she left in John Smith's hotel room.

"...Lincoln Mercury," 47 completes the car dealership reference, then tilts his head slightly. "The Roman god of travelers and communication?"

"'Blessed are the feet of those'," she confirms with a slight smile, then gestures toward the store and tucks the .45 into the back of her jeans. "I'll do the shopping? Then a hotel I suppose; we'll have to figure out where to go next."

"Wrong religion," he shakes his head at the verse, though he doesn't balk at the change in direction, and his eyes warm slightly at the 'we'. "And I wouldn't have expected you to call it _good_ news."

She pauses at that, thinking, then reaches out to place her palm on his chest. "I'm still ... angry, about some things," she admits. Providing her father with the bomb he blew himself and LeClerq up with, for starters. "But I got to say goodbye. If we hadn't found him when we did...."

She lets her voice trail off, then switches tracks again abruptly. She won't admit the other part just yet: that she doesn't particularly want to be alone, now that she knows what it's like not to be. She doesn't feel particularly _sisterly_ toward him, whatever that means; but she does feel connected, and is loath to lose that so swiftly. 

"Gabriel, then," she concludes, dropping her hand again. The name of the Biblical messenger.

47 tilts his head again at that. "Just in public?"

"Just in public." He'd only called her 'ninety' that once, for all he'd pushed her in other ways; she'll respect his self-definition too, however she plans to challenge it. "Forty-seven."

"All right," he agrees, then — sort of melts back into the shadows along the sidewalk, bright red tie, bloodstains, and all.

Katia shakes her head in bemusement. Serve him right if she picks up something completely frivolous while she's here. Like a board game, perhaps? She'd always wanted one, but never had anyone to play with, and she doubts it was a part of his upbringing either. Plus, it'll give her something to fiddle with if she has trouble sleeping again. He can't argue with that, right?

She smiles to herself, then heads into the noise and light of the store.


End file.
